Women in Conversation Offers an Intimate Look into Women's Experience of the World

Top row: artwork by Jill Milenski; Middle row: artwork by Gayle Pritchard;
Bottom row: artwork by Gail Crum

Our show Women in Conversation opens at the Stocker Center Gallery tomorrow night. We are so excited to see the installation. Gail Crum, Jill Milenski and I (Gayle Pritchard) first met years ago in my first Spirit Boxes, Sacred Vessels and Shrines class. The artwork was so amazing, we created an exhibition of the same name. Now, some twenty-five years later, this sisterhood of artists has created a new exhibition, our third in the past four years, and we seek again to offer a strikingly powerful view into how women see and experience life.

From the passage of the 19th Amendment a hundred years ago – giving women the right to vote – to the present day #MeToo era, we three artists celebrate woman's necessary role in society and the  importance of hearing steady, strong diverse female voices expressed through art. The urge to create is itself transformative and necessary, a balm for the soul. Women communicate differently about the gendered dimensions of their place in the world.

Fairy Tale Series: The Wolf at the Door, in progress. Artwork by Jill Milenski

In this groundbreaking exhibition, we raise our voices and speak through our work, a year in the making. Viewers are invited to be collaborators in completing the circle from the birth of an idea to the magical process of turning that idea into an art object that is put on display for all to engage with.

The pieces presented are inspired by daily life, the result of the way we, as women, skillfully and passionately navigate the multi-faceted roles we play: We are sisters, wives, mothers, aunts, daughters, grandmothers, soulmates, girfriends, caregivers, teachers, advocates, activists and artists.

Women in Conversation is the natural outgrowth of long-time artist friends who share a love of process and materials. The unbroken threads of decades-long conversations about our lives,our families, politics, women's issues, art, and techniques are woven into the work we are exhibiting. The show is a unique opportunity to share a piece of what brings us together as women and artists: the vulnerability, the intimacy that arises from telling our stories in our conversations with each other and through our artwork.

Saturday Night (Record Series) by Gail Crum

Along with the shared narrative, we also often share art supplies and found materials unearthed in junk and antiques stores. We share a love of process, of making something from nothing, or trying out new tools and birthing new visions in our note- and sketch-filled journals. We love laughing at the persistent compulsions that are the never-ending subjects of the objects we create. We share processes and favorite techniques with each other, simply playing and exploring ideas while we stretch to make new work that is out of our usual comfort zone. We nurture each other through our sharing and our play-days.

A box of ephemera ready to
be added to an artwork

We love color, old books and postcards, broken objects, paper dolls, fabric, and time-worn wooden blocks. We peruse junk shops, where intuitively gathered new treasures await our artists' mojo – that magical moment when the discarded trinkets and trash of everyday life are transformed. These snippets, pieces and parts are paired with process to become objects that carry the stories of our ideas.

We invite you to join in this living conversation about women, art and community. The chance to show our work and have this conversation is nurturing and necessary. It's a supportive, feminine thing we do together. We raise our voices to speak through our work. We hope you are moved, amused and inspired. Above all, we hope to see you there.

Women in Conversation

 · Where:

Stocker Art Center, 1005 N. Abbe Rd., Elyria, OH 44035

· When:

- Friday February 28, 4 – 7 p.m.: Opening reception, refreshments, Scavenger Hunt, live music and gallery talk at 6:30 p.m.

- Wednesday, March 4, 6 - 7 p.m.: 'Make and Take' with the artists before the play, Ain't I a Woman?

- Friday March 6, 6 - 7:30 p.m.: Visit the gallery before the Winter Film Series

- Friday, March 27, 6 - 7:30 p.m. | Visit the gallery before the Winter Film Series

- Thursday April 2,  4 - 7 p.m. | Closing reception, refreshments, Scavenger Hunt, live music and gallery talk at 6:30 p.m.

- TBA Other events celebrating Women's History Month and the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment

Detail of Travel Ban by Gayle Pritchard and
utilizing an altered Handkerchief Memory Project printed by
Clare Murray Adams

Target is March 2020

Target Family in progress, by Gayle Pritchard

2020 is coming. This is exciting to me for a variety of reasons: a new presidential election, the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment (look it up, please, if you do not know what that is!), and a new exhibition scheduled for March 2020 with my art group: me (Gayle Pritchard), Gail Crum and Jill Milenski at the fabulous Beth K. Stocker Center Gallery.

My art group tries to meet once a week. We have been doing so for years now. We sip wine, catch up with each other, plan play-days and art-related outings, and, all the while, we work on whatever it is we are working on. When one of us is exhibiting in one of the many juried exhibitions around town, we all try to attend the opening. This type of support is so important, not only for the professional reasons you can imagine, but for the emotional support and the safe creative environment it provides.

A drawing play-day at Jill's

Meeting every week provides an incentive to keep working. While it is perfectly okay if you had a hectic week full of distractions or family obligations or illness and got nothing done, we all really want to have something to work on each week, or something to show that we have finished. It's absolutely exhilarating.

Jill and I, both writers as well as artists, recently took part in a one day writing workshop sponsored by our local library system, The 36th annual Western Reserve Writing Conference. Here we found yet another iteration of the creative community in our Northeast Ohio region. We spend the day with like-minded people seeking ways to improve our craft. I am so grateful to be surrounded by creativity virtually everywhere I go. Writing and talking about the writing process is just another way of expressing that fundamental need to express.

All of which now takes me back to my target: March 2020, the next exhibition, the next body of work, the next chance to interact with my audience, and another giant block of time to work on my art with focus.